


Rebound

by montegobae



Series: random jams [2]
Category: K-pop, LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Elementary School, Crack, Gen, haseul is the unfortunate coach for this group of kids, no romance just basketball, warning: stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29799420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/montegobae/pseuds/montegobae
Summary: The realest friends are made in junior league basketball!Inspired by 'Rebound' by Tayla Parx.
Relationships: Kim Hyunjin & Kim Jiwoo | Chuu
Series: random jams [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1452883
Kudos: 13





	Rebound

**Author's Note:**

> strangely enough, i actually think this fic has been a work-in-progress for over a year. it mostly serves as an unfortunately semi-true amalgamation of all the weird shit i've seen kids do and heard em say. i never had to supervise junior league basketball, but i've seen a thing or two nonetheless.
> 
> am i proud of this? no, not really. but the file has been mocking me. i consider publishing this piece less of a triumph, and more like the water you pour down the drain along with the food to help facilitate it through the food dispenser. brrrrrrrrrrr

There she was. Laughing, running, jumping. Just the day before, Hyunjin had been there with her, and they were so happy together. But today, there was nothing to smile about.

Heejin was holding hands with another.

A face she had never even seen before; how could she have been so easily replaced? _She_ was supposed to be Heejin’s favorite warm-up partner. Did their past mean nothing? When Heejin smiled, Hyunjin thought it meant something. But there she was, smiling wider than ever before.

In her eight-and-a-half years of life, the day Hyunjin was late to junior league basketball had to have been the absolute worst.

She scowled from afar, clenching her generally-small-but-pretty-large-for-her-age fists. _She’s even wearing the scrunchie I gave her yesterday…_

The audacity.

Hyunjin refused to take any steps closer, boring holes in Heejin’s oversized jersey—which ran down past her shorts—with her glare. In her head, she thought of every bad word she knew, hoping she could summon some sort of curse to make whoever Heejin was gallivanting with drop dead.

_Frick you, weirdo. Frick you to heck. Who do you think you fricking are? You’re a lamo. Your brain is chicken nuggets. I hope you die._

Heejin eventually turned around, but only to swat away an annoying fly. She saw Hyunjin standing by the gymnasium’s big metal doors, arms crossed.

“Oh!” Heejin waved enthusiastically, unknowing of what stirred within. “Hi Hyunjinnie! Hi!”

Hyunjin tapped her foot.

Heejin was confused, did Hyunjin not see her? “Hi!!!” she exclaimed, waving both arms and jumping up and down. Her jersey nearly swallowed her whole. “Do you see me??? I’m over here!!!”

Hyunjin rolled her eyes.

Heejin gave up, leaving behind her new friend to run up to the taller girl. “What the heck is your dealio?”

“There is no dealio.”

“Did you see me waving at you over there? With _both_ hands???”

Hyunjin leaned back quickly to evade Heejin’s hands shooting into her face. Not only because she was mad at her, but because they had been soiled by Ms. Chicken-Nugget-Brain over there. “Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.” She turned her head away, huffing.

Heejin pouted, exasperated. “You’re being kind of a butt.”

“At least I don’t look like it.”

“At least I don’t smell like it.”

Hyunjin gasped. Scrunching her nose, she thrust her hand into Heejin’s face. “I want my scrunchie back!”

“Fine!” Swift as a hawk, Heejin slipped the scrunchie off, letting her hair fall over her face and shoulders. “I like playing with Chaewon more anyways!” She carelessly tossed it back to Hyunjin while blowing a piece of hair out of her face. Caught off-guard, Hyunjin nearly dropped the scrunchie, bouncing it between her hands like a hot potato. By the time she finally had a good grip on it, it was already too late. Heejin had flown the coop, holding hands and laughing with the nugget-brain once again.

Hyunjin—as she always did in times of stress—got on all fours and arched her back, screeching like a cat. (At this time, she was very into the _Warriors_ book series, and despite being a measly Twoleg, tried her darnedest emulating her fictional heroes to mediocre effect. Her parents hoped she’d soon start using utensils during dinner again. And stop hissing at the neighbors.)

“Whoa there, Hyunjin!” Coach Haseul approached the beast with caution, donning a striped jersey that she prayed the third-grader wouldn’t claw to shreds. She needed it later for her evening shift at Footlocker. Fortunately, Hyunjin settled with growling at her.

“There there, you freak.”

Calmer now, Hyunjin stood back on two feet. She became much less Grumpy Cat and much more Sad Cat.

“Aw, Hyunjin. What’s wrong?” Haseul reached to pat her head, but hesitated, then put her hand away. She’d seen the cat go feral (someone spilled their water bottle over one of her _Warriors_ books), and shuddered at the thought of a repeat incident.

“I…” For someone who could precisely point out every single item they _‘really really really need or I might die_ ’ from the Christmas edition Toys-R-Us toy catalog, Hyunjin was having quite some trouble voicing what she wanted exactly. “I… need a partner for warm-ups.”

“Oh, okay! We can fix that right up!” Haseul chimed, chipper as ever. Scanning the room, “How about… Yes! Jiwoo! Come here, please!”

When Hyunjin finally identified Jiwoo from all the other basketball players, she was wiping her finger with her jersey. Such futile efforts, as Hyunjin could clearly tell that she had just shoved that finger up her nose and was trying desperately to cover her tracks.

 _Oh no,_ Hyunjin thought. _She’s stupid._ She let out a disgruntled _aeong._

Before she knew it, Jiwoo was rushing over, skipping and bounding. She stopped right in front of Hyunjin, a little too close for comfort. Hyunjin stepped back, now clutching onto Haseul.

“Don’t be shy, Hyunjin. Say hello to your new friend!”

 _Shy? Coach, I’m SCARED._ But ever the warrior, Hyunjin lifted her hand ever so slightly, shaking it just once. “H-hi. I’m Hyun—”

“YAY, NEW FRIEND!!!!!” Hyunjin’s introduction was clipped by Jiwoo’s piercing shriek, and she covered her ears. Haseul—to whom childish screaming was just ambient noise—simply stared forward blankly, eyes glossed over. “HI!!!!! I’m Jiwoo and I’m NINE YEARS OLD!!!!!”

When she held a hand out to shake, Hyunjin couldn’t help noticing that it was all purple. Her eyes went wide, and she hid even further behind Haseul. Only her head peeked out.

“Wh-what happened to your hand?” Hyunjin could only imagine the worse. An uncontrollable, relentless infection. First, your hands turn purple. Then, they fall off. The infection spreads all the way up your arms until your shoulders are nubs. Then it consumes your legs, eating you all the way up and through until you’re just an eyebrow. And right in front of her stood Patient Zero.

The blood drained from Hyunjin’s face. _Okay, if I grab the baseball bat in the closet, maybe I can kill h—_

“Oh, my hand?” Jiwoo regarded it curiously, licked it, then recoiled in disgust. “Yuck! I put purple glue stick on it.”

“Why?”

“Because I used up all the regular glue stick.”

Hyunjin was gobsmacked.

“Well, look at you two just chatting up a storm!” Haseul pulled Hyunjin out from behind, quickly grabbing a basketball off of the ground and handing it to her. “Get to warming up now!” Haseul shot some finger guns at the hopeless pair, then took off like a rocket aiming far beyond the Milky Way. Hyunjin was left alone now with Jiwoo, the two lost in space. And no one could hear her scream inside her head.

_FRICK._

“Sorry, what’s your name again?” Jiwoo asked. “I forgot.”

 _You didn’t forget anything because I didn’t even get to—Ugh, whatever._ “Hyunjin,” she grumbled.

“Oh, I like that name, it’s so pretty! How old are you?”

“Eight and a _half_.”

“Ooh, I’m older than you! That means you have to call me _unnie!_ ” Jiwoo teased, rocking back and forth from her heels to her tiptoes.

Hyunjin looked Jiwoo up and down. Her hair was tied into uneven pigtails, each clearly braided by herself. She missed several pieces of hair, which flounced about as she moved around. Though her jersey fit okay enough, her shorts looked as though they were handed down from Lebron James himself, dragging along the floor. The drawstring was pulled far and tight, its knot forming loops large enough to fit a watermelon. Her purple hands were sickly in the sense that they made Hyunjin feel physically ill. And it appeared that some ‘gold’ still remained under her nail from her ‘treasure digging endeavor’ earlier.

“Um.” Hyunjin grimaced. “We’re not doing that.”

Jiwoo frowned, but rebounded within a second, acting all bubbly once again. “C’mon, Hyunjin! Let’s pass the ball!” Jiwoo hopped back a few times, almost bumping into another kid. “I’m wide open!”

Hyunjin thanked the stars that she decided to wear a long-sleeve under her jersey. She pulled her sleeves over her hands, avoiding direct contact with the ball. Anything to limit her contact with Typhoid Jiwoo.

The ball was tossed gently in Jiwoo’s direction, trickling forward slowly, bouncing many times before even coming close to the girl. Yet, Jiwoo still missed the ball completely, throwing her arms around a bunch of air.

“I got it!!! I got it!!! I… don’t got it.” Looking back, the ball rolled to a still behind her. As Jiwoo scampered to collect it, Hyunjin’s tiny, pudgy face fell into her less-tiny, still-pudgy hands.

“Watch out for this, Hyunjin! Hi-yah!” Jiwoo passed the ball back towards Hyunjin. Well, more towards her left. Actually far to her left. Seems the little booger-eater was much stronger than anticipated, Hyunjin launched to her side to catch the bulleting ball between her sleeve-shielded hands. As she caught her breath, her mouth curled into a smile.

(NOTE: The two greatest highs an eight-year-old should ever experience occur after they either:

1) run really fast, or  
2) catch a difficult throw.

Achieving both feats had Hyunjin drowning in endorphins. She hadn’t felt this good since she single-handedly led her half of the gym class to victory in kickball.)

 _Maybe this won’t be too bad._ “Nice throw!”

“Thank you!!!” Jiwoo’s gigantic mega-watt smile had her eyes nearly shut.

“Think fast!” Like last time, Hyunjin bounced the ball towards her softly.

By the time Jiwoo’s eyes were back open, the ball was behind her again.

As the unlikely duo continued passing the ball back and forth, Hyunjin began warming up to Jiwoo, engaging in some sophisticated conversation with her.

“So, if you had to choose between hotdog fingers and spaghetti hair,” Jiwoo asked, “which would you choose?”

“Hmm,” Hyunjin deliberated. “Probably spaghetti hair. Fingers don’t grow back like hair.”

“What if it did?”

“I’d probably still go spaghetti hair.”

“But don’t you think hotdogs are— Phew.” Jiwoo paused to catch her breath, recovering from another one of Hyunjin’s ~~slow rolls of the ball~~ dastardly throws. “Don’t you think they’re yummier than spaghetti?”

“No way, spaghetti and meatballs are the best!” Hyunjin responded, catching another one of Jiwoo’s wild bullets with ease.

“But hair spaghetti would probably be plain spaghetti.”

“It’s not like I would have to eat it.”

“Then what’s the point of having food for your body if you’re not gonna’ eat it?”

“TIME OUT!” Hyunjin called. Ball tucked under her arm, she held her hands up in a T. “Jieun—”

“It’s Jiwoo—”

“Jiwon. We need to talk.” They walked to one another and stood close, the warrior staring the little cannonball down.

“What’s wrong, Hyunjin?”

“You said something really offensive to me.”

Jiwoo gasped. “Oh no, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, really.”

Hyunjin looked down. “You couldn’t help it.”

Jiwoo’s heart fell to the floor, dragging along with her shorts. “I can try. What did I say? How did I hurt you?”

Contemplatively, Hyunjin looked to her side, staring into the distance that was this 2,000-square-feet recreational space at their local community center. She let a minute pass, before exhaling slow and heavy.

“Okay, honestly you just keep saying dumb stuff and I need a break from it.”

“What the heck?”

“Go stand in the corner.”

Jiwoo—whose expression could be best described as ‘???’—stomped her little feet, rooted to her spot. Adamantly, Hyunjin threw her arm past Jiwoo’s shoulder, gesturing to the corner near the emergency exit. “Corner. Now.”

Jiwoo called for Haseul, who was passing by at just the wrong moment.

“HASEULHASEULHASEULHASUELAHSUELHAUSELHUASLEHULAS—”

The coach winced, asking herself once again, _why do you subjugate yourself to such torture for minimum wage? Sooyoung funded her Sunmi tickets purely through commissioned feet pics on OnlyFans. There must be a better way._ _Curse the chains of this capitalist society, and the lies of the supposed free-market economy._

Defeatedly, she responded, “Yes, Jiwoo?”

“Hyunjin said I have to stand in the corner!”

“Which corner?”

Haseul looked to where Jiwoo pointed. _Ooh, when was the last time that corner was dusted?_ Haseul pondered for about 3.5 milliseconds before shrugging it off. _Not my problem._

“So… Are you allergic to cobwebs?”

“Um, no?”

Haseul looked to Hyunjin, who took her right fist in her left hand, cracking each knuckle one-by-one. Despite the shrill screams of the children around her, each and every _pop!_ slammed up against her eardrums. Each and every _pop!_ was a reminder that Hyunjin could probably suplex her into next Tuesday. She wondered how many likes a video of a teenager getting bodied by a third-grader would get on TikTok. _But I can’t… No, I won’t._ She wouldn’t let a video of her last breaths go viral with a Lizzo song playing over them.

“Jiwoo, how about you just go stand in the corner?”

“What the heck???”

Haseul looked to Hyunjin again, who slid a single finger slowly across her neck.

“Five minutes.” She dug into her pocket, pulling out a Jolly Rancher. “You can have this. It’s strawberry-flavored.”

Jiwoo glared at Haseul, then at Hyunjin, then Haseul again, swiping the candy from her. “You win this round, old man.” Unwrapping the candy, Jiwoo went to her corner, leaving the wrapper on the floor.

As she bent over to pick it up, she asked Hyunjin, “Do you have anything you’d like to say?”

Hyunjin cocked her head. “I’ve never seen anyone skip and twirl so angrily before.”

Haseul stood up, crossing her arms. “Anything else?”

“Also Jiyoung is sticking the Jolly Rancher onto the window on the door.”

“WHAT—” Sure enough, when she whipped her head around, she saw Jiwoo’s pretty little head pressed against the door, reaching up as high as she could to press the candy near the top of the piece of glass between her and the outside. A trail of spit ran all the way from the little piece of hardened sugar to the dirty child who was going to get Haseul fired. “JIWOO NO!!!”

With Haseul running over to the corner too, Hyunjin was left alone with the basketball. Her sleeves still covering her hands, she rolled the ball around, observing how Jiwoo’s purple glue stains clashed with the orange. The sight would almost be vaguely beautiful if Hyunjin was not fully cognizant of just how disgusting the surface of the ball must’ve been.

 _If I licked this, I would probably die,_ she thought.

When Hyunjin looked up, Haseul was walking Jiwoo back toward her, holding her hand. The candy was still stuck to the window, and Jiwoo was beaming like she always was. But, Hyunjin could sense something just behind those eyes, something powerful and… _unhinged_ , per se. It sent a shiver down her spine. Beside Jiwoo, Haseul looked traumatized. She kept muttering, “Hyunjin, she’s learned her lesson. She has. You can play again,” like she was rehearsing it. And Hyunjin was less than convinced by her current performance.

She looked back down at the ball. _I think I will lick you. It might be the best option._

But before her tongue could touch upon the bacteria-ridden surface, she heard a voice call for her, like an angel who parted a furious storm just to descend upon this humble Earth and save her from damnation.

“Hyunjin! Chaewon had to go home early and I forgot why I’m mad at you so actually I’m not mad anymore! Do you wanna’ play together?”

Here Heejin was, running right back into her arms. _All is right again_.

Hyunjin sighed in relief, drawing a huge cross along her body. All the stress visibly melted off her body, like a box of crayons abandoned under a July sun.

“Are you okay?” Heejin asked.

“Heejin, I love you.”

“I’m eight.”

With a tear in her eye, Hyunjin replied, “Me too. Pass me the ball.”

From near the time-out corner, watching Hyunjin readily abandon the basketball upon which she thought a life-long friendship would be built upon, Jiwoo’s heart ripped in two. As she watched Hyunjin return to Heejin, she felt _used_. Against her wishes, Hyunjin became just another friend who would come and leave faster than Spicy McNuggets at McDonald’s.

“Haseul, why is it so hard to keep a friend?”

“Well, considering the fact that you somehow know my home address, social security number, and my grandmother’s maiden name and just used those facts to threaten my life, coupled with the fact that you might’ve chemically bonded our skin together with the shear amount of glue coating your hands, _also_ coupled with the fact that you look like someone tried to draw the girl from the Wendy’s logo from memory, _also_ —"

“Haseul, please leave me alone.”

“See, that’s pretty rich coming from you. How did you find out where I live? Are you really nine years old? What kind of nine-year-old even knows what a social security number is? Did you hurt my grandma?”

“Leave me alone!” Jiwoo quite literally ripped her hands from Haseul’s, causing the other to yelp and curl over in pain. But for her, the flesh wound from her hand was no match for the painful reminder of her eternal loneliness. She made a mad dash for the door, unable to see through her tears. All the kids hopped out of her way, not due to any sense of empathy, but because they’d all seen her hands earlier, and even the least hygienic kid had a limit.

_“LOOK OUT!”_

Jiwoo could just make out the warning and froze in her tracks. Wiping away her tears, she came face-to-face with a basketball barreling straight towards her face, likely to pound her nose in and knock her little body out. It was far too late for any sort of reaction. All she could do was brace herself.

_This is it. This is how it all ends. No friends, just me and this ball._

Suddenly, Jiwoo felt someone scoop her up, pulling her to the side just out of the way. The ball made a loud _thud!_ against the wall just behind her, the sound reverberating throughout the gym. Wide-eyed, she watched the ball bounce a few more times before slowing to a roll near the middle of the court they were on, catching her breath. Just as sudden as before, she was then ungracefully dropped onto a mat.

“Whuh—huh? Who—”

She looked up and met familiar eyes. (And a familiar look of disdain, but we’re all choosing to ignore it.)

“Hyunjin?! You saved me!” She jumped back onto her feet, lunging towards Hyunjin with a hug.

Hyunjin smacked her big forehead. “Don’t touch me.”

Still, Jiwoo smiled at her, even with a glowing handprint on her face. “I thought you left me forever! But you didn’t!”

“Well I was actually going to.”

“But you didn’t! Yay!” Jiwoo wiggled her eyebrows. “Does this mean we’re best friends now?”

“Jia—”

“It’s Jiwoo.”

“Whatever. I think you’re my best friend whose name starts with a ‘J.’”

(NOTE: Jieun/Jiwon/Jiyoung/Jia is the only person that Hyunjin knows whose name starts with a ‘J.’)

Jiwoo squealed in excitement and tried hugging Hyunjin again, only to receive a second handprint to make sure the first one wasn’t lonely. Still, she simply couldn’t stop smiling.

Another ball approached Jiwoo, slowly this time. It arrived just by her feet.

“Hey Hyunjin!” Heejin called. “Can you tell your friend to pass the ball back?”

Jiwoo squealed again at hearing Heejin call her Hyunjin’s ‘friend,’ grabbing onto Hyunjin’s sleeve. Hyunjin tried pulling her hand back, but strangely couldn’t. _What the?_ She tried yanking her arm out over and over, but it simply wouldn’t pull away from Jiwoo’s grimy hands. And it wasn’t just the glue, no. The blood drained from Hyunjin’s face. She feared that Jiwoo was much more than what she let on.

Trying not to let her nervousness show, Hyunjin asked, “Hey, how about you let go of me and pass that ball back to Heejin?”

“Okay, _bestie!_ ” Jiwoo promptly let go, Hyunjin not even realizing how tight her vice-grip was until she felt the blood rushing back into her arms. After shooting her some finger guns, Jiwoo picked the ball up. “Here you go!” she yelled. And she tossed it back.

Okay, she _hurtled_ it back.

_Why is it moving kind of fast?_

_Okay, like really fast?_

And for the very first time, it’s not way off.

It’s right on target.

_Oh no._

_Oh no._

_Oh no no no no no._

Hyunjin started sprinting.

_“HEEJIN LOOK OUT!”_

**Author's Note:**

> glue kid and cat kid were the same person, if you were curious.
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/yeojinakgae_)  
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/montegobae)  
> [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDB_B_UgXXg)


End file.
